Social Security Calculator

How it's calculated

1. Your benefit at each age

Everything starts from your primary insurance amount, the benefit at full retirement age, which is 66 and some months for people born from 1955 to 1959 and 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Social Security counts you as reaching an age the day before your birthday, and you can start retirement benefits in the first month you are 62 for the whole month. In the example, born in June 1964, full retirement age is 67 (June 2031), and the earliest month still open is November 2026, at 62 and 5 months.

Claiming early takes 5/9 of 1% off for each of the first 36 months before full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that; the reduction is rounded up to the next 10 cents and the payment down to the dollar. In the example, claiming now pays $1,441 a month. Waiting past full retirement age earns delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% a month up to 70, rounded down to 10 cents: $2,000 at full retirement age becomes $2,480 at 70. Credits earned in the year you claim are added the following January, so a claim between birthdays pays less for its first months, which is why a January claim can be worth more than the months either side of it.

2. Valuing each choice

For every month you could claim, the calculator adds up every payment you would receive, each one weighted by the chance you are alive to receive it and discounted at 2.7% a year after inflation. The chances come from the mortality table the IRS publishes each year for pension plans, scaled for your health. At the default health your life expectancy is 85.8. Every amount is in today's dollars, on the assumption that cost-of-living adjustments keep pace with prices, which is why the rate is one after inflation; the yield on Treasury inflation-protected securities is the market's price for income that rises with prices.

In the example, claiming in January 2033, at 68 and 7 months is worth $305,402, claiming at full retirement age $302,844, at 70 $302,848, and claiming now $291,864. Every age from 66 and 3 months to 70 comes within 1% of the best, which is why the answer names the range as well as the best. The best moves with the rate: at 0%, claiming at 70 is worth the most; at 4.4%, claiming in December 2026, at 62 and 6 months is.

3. The break-even age

The break-even age is the age at which your total from a later claim catches up with your total from an earlier one and stays ahead. Counting every dollar the same, waiting until 70 catches up with claiming now at 80 and 6 months in the example, and you have a 74% chance of being alive then. Discounted at 2.7%, it catches up at 83 and 11 months (62%). The break-even is on your own benefit alone; for a couple, the value of each pair is the better guide, because a later claim also raises the survivor's benefit.

4. Spouse's and survivor's benefits

A spouse's benefit is up to half the other spouse's benefit at full retirement age, paid on top of the spouse's own benefit as the part above it, from the month both have claimed (deemed filing starts the two together). It is reduced by 25/36 of 1% a month for the first 36 months before full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% beyond, and earns no delayed credits. In the married example the spouse's own $900 leaves $100 on top at full retirement age.

When one spouse dies, the other gets the larger of their own benefit and a survivor's benefit: the deceased's benefit with every delayed credit earned before death, reduced if the survivor starts it before their own full retirement age, down to 71.5% at 60. If the deceased claimed early, the survivor's benefit is limited to the larger of what they were receiving and 82.5% of their full retirement age amount. The calculator values each couple's pair over every combination of the two lifetimes, assuming the survivor starts the survivor's benefit as soon as it can be paid. In the example the pair worth the most is you claiming at 70 and your spouse at 62 and 1 month, $503,545; if you died at your life expectancy your spouse would get $2,479 a month.

5. The earnings test

If you claim before full retirement age and keep working, the earnings test withholds $1 of benefits for each $2 of earnings above the year's limit, and $1 for each $3 above a higher limit in the year you reach full retirement age, counting only the months before it. Benefits are withheld from January, or from the month you claim, until the year's excess is covered; a month only partly withheld is shared in proportion to each person's benefit, as the regulations say. In your first year of benefits, a month in which you do not work is paid in full. At full retirement age your benefit is figured again without the months withheld. In the example, claiming at 63 and earning $50,000 a year until 66: $12,220 of excess earnings in 2027, $34,940 withheld in all, and from June 2031 the benefit rises from $1,500 to $1,744 a month , which repays what was withheld by 78 and 11 months.

6. Rounding

Benefits are worked out in cents with exact fractions. A reduction is rounded up to the next 10 cents after dropping everything past the fourth decimal place; a credit increase, half a benefit and 82.5% of one are rounded down to 10 cents; excess earnings are rounded down to the dollar; and each benefit is paid rounded down to the dollar, separately when you receive two, so a survivor paid their own benefit plus the survivor's excess can get a dollar less than the deceased received. Values are rounded to the cent at the end and shown in whole dollars.

Estimating your benefit from earnings

Choose Estimate from my earnings and the calculator works out your benefit at full retirement age the way Social Security does from an earnings record, building the record from one year's earnings. In the example, $50,000 of earnings in 2025, with work from 22 to 66:

1. Your earnings. You enter your covered earnings for 2025: the wages in box 3 of your W-2 plus net earnings from self-employment. Earlier years follow the national average wage back to the age you started, 2% a year lower for each year back, which assumes your pay rose a little faster than the average wage each year (you can change the rate under More options, and 0% means it kept pace). Later years stay at the 2025 level until you stop. Each year counts up to that year's taxable maximum.
2. Indexing. Each year before 2024 is scaled to the national average wage in 2024, so earnings from decades ago count at today's wage level; later years count as they are. In the example, $9,368 earned in 1995 counts as $26,484.
3. The average. Your 35 highest indexed years, with any year of no earnings counted as $0, are added up and divided by 420 months, then rounded down to the dollar: your average indexed monthly earnings, $3,153 in the example.
4. The formula. For people who turn 62 in 2026, the benefit is 90% of the average up to $1,286, 32% of the part up to $7,749 and 15% of the rest, rounded down to 10 cents, plus any cost-of-living increases from the year you turn 62. Paid rounded down to the dollar, the example's benefit is $1,754 a month at full retirement age.
5. Credits. A retirement benefit needs 40 credits, and a year of earnings earns up to four. Without 40 from the years before you claim, your own benefit is $0.

Work after you start benefits counts too: each January Social Security refigures your benefit with the year just ended, and a year that beats one of your 35 raises it. The estimate does the same for every claiming age it compares. In the example, claiming in January 2033, at 68 and 7 months is worth the most on average, $267,989.

Use your Social Security Statement when you have it. It is built from your actual record, year by year, so it catches the years an estimate cannot: a late start, time out of work, a few very good years. The estimate assumes a smooth career from one year's earnings. It suits a first look without the Statement, or seeing how stopping work earlier would change the benefit.

If you are widowed

A survivor's benefit is your late spouse's benefit at full retirement age plus any delayed credits they earned before they died. It is reduced if you start it before your full retirement age as a survivor, down to 71.5% at 60, and it earns nothing for waiting past that age. If they had started a reduced benefit, yours is limited to the larger of what they were receiving and 82.5% of their full retirement age amount.

Deemed filing does not apply to a survivor's benefit, so you can start it and your own retirement benefit in different months. Once both have started you are paid your own benefit plus the part of the survivor's benefit above it. The calculator compares pairs of starts: the survivor's benefit at each whole age from 60 to your full retirement age as a survivor, your own at each whole age from 62 to 70, full retirement age and now, and either one never.

In the example, your late spouse was born in March 1960 with $2,600 a month at full retirement age, died in January 2025 and had not started their benefit. The survivor's benefit pays $2,114 a month started now and $2,600 started at your full retirement age for survivors (67). Of every pair, starting your survivor’s benefit now and your own at 70 is worth the most on average, $472,869, $44,694 more than starting both as early as you can.

You are taken to have been married at least nine months. A remarriage at 60 or later, or one that has ended, keeps a survivor's benefit; if you remarried before 60 and are still married, choose Married instead. If your spouse died before 62, enter the benefit Social Security gives you, because it works that amount out differently. Benefits for a widow or widower caring for a child under 16 are not covered.

If you are divorced

You can be paid on a former spouse's record if your marriage lasted at least 10 years. While they are living and you are not married, you get up to half their benefit at full retirement age, less your own, reduced if you start before your own full retirement age. If they have claimed, it can start right away; if they have not, it can start once they are 62 for a whole month and you have been divorced at least two years, which the calculator assumes. Their work does not reduce it after those two years. Claiming your own benefit also claims this one, under deemed filing, and it takes nothing from your former spouse or their family.

If your former spouse dies, you can get a survivor's benefit on their record as a widow or widower would, under the same remarriage rule. While they are living, the calculator weights each month by the chance they have died and starts the survivor's benefit as soon as it can be paid. If they have died, choose Deceased and the calculator compares when to start the survivor's benefit and your own, as for a widowed reader.

In the example, your former spouse has $2,400 a month at full retirement age. Half of it is not more than your own $2,000, so nothing is paid on their record while they live, but if they died at their life expectancy you would get $2,400 a month from June 2048. With your own benefit at $800 instead, their record adds $400 a month to your $800 at full retirement age. If you were married less than 10 years, nothing is paid on their record, and your own benefit is valued alone.

Assumptions and limits

• Everything is in today's dollars. Cost-of-living adjustments are assumed to match inflation, so each benefit stays level in today's dollars. In practice Social Security rounds each benefit down to 10 cents after every yearly adjustment, so real payments drift slightly below this.
• Your Statement's estimate assumes your current earnings continue until you claim. If you stop work years before claiming, your benefit may be lower than it shows.
• Each month's payment is counted in the month it is for, not the following month when it is paid.
• The life tables are the mortality tables the IRS publishes each year for pension plans, for men, for women, and their 50/50 blend, applied at every future age as published. Your health choice scales every death rate: 0.7, 1, 1.5 or 3 times the table.
• For a couple, the two of you are treated as independent lives, married long enough for spouse's and survivor's benefits. The ages compared are whole years, full retirement age and claiming now; for a single person, every month. A survivor starts the survivor's benefit as soon as it can be paid and keeps their own planned claiming age.
• The earnings test is applied to your earnings only, evenly through the year, as if both of you are alive through the year. Each year's published limit is used, and later years keep the newest one.
• The retirement calculator, which projects whether savings last, applies the same survivor rules by whole years, with birthdays taken as mid-year and the survivor's benefit starting at the survivor's own start age or full retirement age, so the two can differ for a survivor by the timing.
• The Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset no longer apply (Social Security Fairness Act, for months after December 2023).
• The estimate from earnings starts from your covered earnings in 2025 (or your last full year of work) and works back to the age you started, assuming your pay grew a little faster than the average wage each year: 2% unless you change it, so your earlier pay was lower. It assumes you earn the same, at today's wage level, until you stop, and each year counts up to that year's taxable maximum. If you reach 62 after 2027, it uses the newest formula Social Security has published (2027's) as if you were eligible then, which is today's wage level and can differ from today's prices by up to one year's growth in real wages. Work after you start benefits raises the benefit each January, as Social Security's yearly recomputation does. Your Statement uses your actual record and is more accurate.
• A widow or widower is taken to have been married at least nine months; a remarriage at 60 or later, or one that has ended, does not stop a survivor's benefit (if you remarried before 60 and are still married, choose Married). A divorced reader is taken to have been married at least 10 years (asked), not to be married now and, while the former spouse is living and has not claimed, to have been divorced at least two years. A widowed reader's starts are compared at whole ages, full retirement age and now.
• For a death before 62, enter the figure Social Security gives you: the calculator does not work out Social Security's special indexing for it. When it estimates a spouse's benefit from earnings and that spouse dies young, it requires 40 credits, where Social Security requires fewer after a young death, so it can miss a survivor's benefit Social Security would pay. After a former spouse's death the survivor's benefit is started as soon as it can be paid; a widowed reader instead compares when to start it.
• It leaves out Medicare premiums taken from the benefit, income tax on benefits, disability benefits, child benefits and the family maximum, benefits for a widow or widower caring for a child under 16, anyone already receiving a widow's, widower's or divorced spouse's benefit, a working spouse's own earnings test, and suspending a benefit already claimed.

Questions

Version history

• November 2, 2026 (version 1.0.0): First version: your benefit at every claiming month, from your Statement or estimated from your earnings; married, widowed and divorced readers; each choice valued by the chance you are alive for each payment; break-even ages and the earnings test.